Barbara Honigmann

Barbara Honigmann, 2014. Photo by Peter Hassiepen.

In Brief

Barbara Honigmann is among the most important German-Jewish writers born after the Shoah. Honigmann firmly places her writing within the tradition of German literature, though she is painfully aware of the anti-semitic strains in German cultural history. In her prose and essays, she sketches portrayals of German Jews as they fled National Socialism to settle as Communists in post-war East Berlin. She also portrays clashes between the religious and cultural traditions of Sephardim and Ashkenazim Strasbourg, France, where she lives in self-imposed exile, and provides powerful insights into her generation of Jews born into the secular societies of Eastern Europe.

Brandt, Bettina. “Attempts to Read the World. An Interview with Writer Barbara Honigmann.” In Rebirth of a Culture: Jewish Identity and Jewish Writing in Germany and Austria Today, edited by Hillary Hope Herzog et al., 157-170. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008.

Nolden, Thomas. Junge jüdische Literatur. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann,1995.

Stern, Guy. “Barbara Honigmann: A Preliminary Assessment.” In Insiders and Outsiders, edited by D. Lorenz and C. Weinberger. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.